Mitch Joel Discusses CTRL ALT DEL at Content Marketing World 2012

Mitch Joel who is President of Twist Image — an award-winning Digital Marketing agency. And his first book, Six Pixels of Separation, is a business and marketing bestseller. Mitch’s next book, CTRL ALT DEL, is the topic of his opening keynote on Wednesday September 5th at Content Marketing World in Columbus.

About Mitch Joel:

Mitch Joel is President of Twist Image – an award-winning Digital Marketing and Communications agency (although he prefers the title, Media Hacker). Marketing Magazine dubbed him the “Rock Star of Digital Marketing” and called him, “one of North America’s leading digital visionaries.” Joel is frequently called upon to be a subject matter expert for BusinessWeek, Fast Company, Marketing Magazine, and many other media outlets. His first book, Six Pixels of Separation (published by Grand Central Publishing – Hachette Book Group), named after his successful Blog and Podcast is a business and marketing bestseller. His next book, CTRL ALT DEL, (also published by Grand Central Publishing) will be coming out in Spring 2013. You can follow Mitch on Twitter @mitchjoel.

About Content Marketing World:

Content Marketing World is the largest gathering of content marketing professionals in the world. Content Marketing World is the one event where you can learn and network with the best and the brightest in the content marketing industry. You will leave with all the materials you need to take a content strategy back to your team – and – implement a content marketing plan that will grow your business and engage your audience. Content Marketing World 2012 takes place on September 4 – 6, 2012 at the Columbus Convention Center, Columbus, Ohio.

Transcription (edited):

Arnie: Hello everyone. I’m Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures, a search, social, and content marketing agency in Phoenix, Arizona. I’d like to introduce you to Mitch Joel, who is President of Twist Image, an award-winning digital marketing agency. His first book, “Six Pixels of Separation”, is a business and marketing bestseller. Welcome, Mitch.

Mitch: Thanks for having me, I’m happy to be here.

Arnie: Great. So, Mitch, you’re next book “CTRL ALT DEL” is the topic of your keynote address on Wednesday, I think it’s September 5th at Content Marketing World in Columbus this year. Why don’t you give our viewers kind of a quick overview of what you’re going to present and talk about? Of course, we’ll probably discuss the book as well.

Mitch: Sure. Well, thanks for the opportunity. First off, the exciting thing is that the book’s only coming out next May, so Spring 2013. It’ll be a very early preview of the content. For me, the past couple years have been really fascinating, being involved in the digital marketing, and media space specifically, that convergence of everybody being a publisher, while brands can use a better connect to consumers.

It’s sort of strange to start thinking about a world where everybody who you’re trying to connect with is also a publisher in and of themselves, and everyone’s vying for this attention in, what probably in some psychological circles, would’ve been some psychopathic type of way. I think the output of that is that business has actually fundamentally changed, and what I’ve netted out to in the book “CTRL ALT DEL”, it’s really two parts.

The first part is really about what you need to do to reboot your business in such a different and connecting world. The second part is what you need to have as an individual to be valuable in terms of being an employee, or an entrepreneur, or a start-up within that new framework.

So, without going into too many sort of details on some of the key takeaways for me, and I think most relevant to the audience at Content Marketing World, is going to be the idea of understanding the power of these direct relationships is very profound.

When you think about the ability for you as a consumer to have a direct relationship with a brand, you go, “Well, no big deal, right? I Tweet them that their customer service sucks on Twitter and someone will respond.” But it’s pretty profound when you start thinking about brands now actually can have this direct relationships with their consumers. What I feel is happening is that, we’ve entered into a really unique moment where there’s almost this battle or a war happening, where brands and companies B2B and B2C, you’re not just competing with their competitors to make that happen. But you’re actually competing in a very, very deep and big way with your partners and providers.

You think about this story that I’ll probably tell is, if you went out to buy a pair of headphones of, let’s say, Beats by Dre, Beats by Dre will say, “Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook world,” and whatever else they might tell you. At the same time, Target, where you bought those headphones would tell you, “Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.”

Now, stop and be the consumer for five seconds and realize that you just bought a pair of headphones for $100. No big deal, right? Yet, there are all these marketing messages that are being demanded of us, as if you’re going to be missing something if you don’t and the truths are the value chains. For me, that’s one of the bigger, more profound things that I’m hoping to share with the audience.

Arnie: Yeah, that’s super. Super. I think you’re going to also really talk about mobile. I don’t remember the exact title of the keynote. Obviously, what you just described, going into the store and buying your headphones and all that could apply with mobile.

Mitch: Yeah.

Arnie: But do you have anything specific there?

Mitch: Well, I think the big thing for me is that we live in a world now, where people are talking about this idea of the “four screen world”, that there’s TV, and computer, and mobile, and iPad, and all these sorts of things. The truth for me, and one of the sort of big core components of my presentation, is I view what I call the “one screen world”. I think through The Cloud computing, asynchronous apps, and things like that, the only screen that matters is the screen that’s in front of me.

I tell the story of my niece, who if I go back to when she was 16 a couple years ago. She’d come home from school and plunk her knapsack down and pull out her laptop. She’d open the lid, turn on the TV, plug in her ear-bud, listen to her iPod, and have her blackberry messenger going. If I fast-forward to this day and age, I’ll see that same niece come in from school, plunk down that same knapsack, open it up and just take out her tablet.

Her tablet is her TV, and it is her computer, and it is her Twitter, and it is her Facebook. It’s all of those things. Not to say that we’re quickly leaving a world of companion devices and things like that, but we are sort of leaving this world of multi-platforming, where there are unique things happening on each screen, versus that asynchronous experience.

I think those doubters are the people who sort of doubt what I’m saying and all of that’s not going to happen sooner or later. Human beings are very good at maybe looking at lateral grown, and not exponential growth. I think the key message, too, is that from a content marketing world, we’re actually moving into this world of massive exponential growth. It’s something we can’t even comprehend.

Arnie: Yep. I totally agree. Well, I can’t remember, were you at Content Marketing World last year?

Mitch: I haven’t. This is my first time coming down, and I’m actually really excited. I’ve met Joe a couple times and we’ve hung out. I’ve heard of tangentially about this famed event, and Joe was like, “You’re going to come down to keynote.” I said, “Yeah, sure. Let’s have some more drinks.” Sure enough, now that’s actually happened. I’m really excited.

Arnie: Well, I tell you. You’re going to really like it. Joe runs an awesome event. It’s one of their few I think that are just totally focused on content, which is your focus. The audience is excellent. It’s educational and entertaining all in one. It’s hard to believe that last year’s event was the first event. It was just that well done. So, I think you’re going to really enjoy it.

Mitch: It has a great reputation already, so there you go.

Arnie: Super. All righty. Well, that’s all the time we have and I appreciate all of your insights. I look forward to seeing you there, and for everybody who’s watching it, it’s September 4th through the 6th in Columbus, Ohio. That’s Content Marketing World, and if you’re there, you’ll see Mitch’s keynote the first day. I appreciate it.